Newsletter – Page 131

ALI HARALSON PROMOTED TO PRESIDENT OF AUCTION.COM

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Haralson will oversee sales and operations as company’s first woman president Intensifies company’s focus on “get to sold” with innovative solutions that yield better outcomes for servicers, buyers, homeowners, and communities Sets stage for efficient scaling as distressed disposition volumes rise Auction.com, the nation’s leading distressed real estate marketplace, announced that Ali Haralson has been promoted to president, a new position in the company that will oversee both sales and operations. Haralson, who has served as the company’s chief business development officer since 2017, will continue to report to CEO Jason Allnutt. “Over the last four years, Ali has successfully partnered with our clients to develop creative disposition solutions, expand our product offerings, innovate new technologies, and help build the vision of Auction.com’s rapidly growing marketplace,” said Allnutt. “I’m thrilled to have her step into this new role, which will set the stage for efficient growth and excellence at Auction.com even as distressed disposition volumes are expected to rise in the coming months and years.” In her four years at Auction.com, Haralson has spearheaded the launch of innovative disposition solutions that reduce friction in the distressed property marketplace and ultimately produce better outcomes for mortgage servicers, distressed homeowners, distressed property buyers, and surrounding communities. Products launched under Haralson’s leadership include Portfolio Interact™, Bid Interact™ and Offer Interact™. “At Auction.com, we are focused on products and solutions that more efficiently get to sold,” said Haralson. “This focus results in a truly transparent marketplace that is beneficial for all parties involved in a distressed disposition. A transparent marketplace ensures the highest and best offer — protecting both the servicer’s interest and the homeowner’s equity. A transparent marketplace also rewards buyers who are best at responsibly rehabbing distressed homes and returning them to the retail market — which in turn improves homeownership rates and home values in the surrounding community.” Haralson has more than 20 years of experience in the servicing industry. Prior to joining Auction, Haralson was COO at Specialized Loan Servicing (SLS), a company that she co-founded in 2003. Under her leadership, SLS grew to employ 1,400 people and service a diverse mortgage portfolio of $50 billion. “It’s a very special historical milestone for Auction.com to promote its first woman president, and to do so during Women’s History Month,” Allnutt said. “Nothing better represents our commitment to recognizing and promoting fantastic talent, while creating a more diverse and inclusive company.” About Auction.com Auction.com is the world’s leading distressed real estate marketplace that engages buyers with a real-time bidding process, providing more transparency than a traditional real estate transaction. With more than 700 employees in offices across the United States, Auction.com uses world-class technology and data science to bring buyers and sellers closer together, bridging the gap between both sides and unleashing the power of the marketplace with its unrivaled transaction platform. For more information, visit: https://www.auction.com

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The National Rental Home Council (NRHC) announced the release of The Property Owners Guide to Rental Assistance, a concise, step-by-step resource to help rental home providers – especially small, individual owners – navigate the process of applying for funding through the federal government’s emergency rental assistance program. “NRHC has been advocating for rental assistance since the beginning of the COVID crisis in early 2020. Now that assistance is finally available, we want to make sure struggling rental home providers have the tools needed to pursue appropriate relief,” according to David Howard, executive director of NRHC. “Our data shows 50% of individual property owners have not received full rent during the past year, jeopardizing their ability to cover the many required costs of home ownership including mortgages, taxes, maintenance costs, and community assessments.” The Property Owners Guide to Rental Assistance provides property owners with relevant insight into key aspects of the federal rental assistance program and outlines a framework for navigating the application process. The guide covers critical steps involved in obtaining rental assistance including: assessing your situation; communicating with your tenant; organizing supporting material; submitting your application; and keeping thorough records. “Rental home providers, large and small, are an essential part of the American rental housing ecosystem,” continued Howard. “According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there is less rental housing in the country today than there was five years ago, even as the amount of owner-occupied housing has increased 10%. Many rental home providers have spent the better part of a year struggling to cover the necessary costs of home ownership all while straining to comply with a myriad of local, state, and federal mandates governing eviction policy and other areas of rental home ownership. Rental home providers need assurance that the market will support their efforts. Rental assistance is good for the industry and we hope The Property Owners Guide to Rental Assistance will be prove useful for the many providers committed to keeping family housing affordable and accessible.” Click here for a copy of The Property Owners Guide to Rental Assistance. About NRHC The National Rental Home Council (NRHC) is the nonprofit trade association representing the single-family rental home industry. NRHC members provide families and individuals with access to high-quality, single-family rental homes that contribute to the vitality and vibrancy of neighborhoods and communities. For more information on NRHC or the single-family rental home industry visit www.rentalhomecouncil.org Contact: David Howard, dhoward@rentalhomecouncil.org

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The median home sale price increased 17% year over year to $330,250—an all-time high—according to a new report from Redfin (redfin.com), the technology-powered real estate brokerage. This is the largest increase on record in this data set, which goes back through 2016. Below are other key housing market takeaways for more than 400 U.S. metro areas during the 4-week period ending March 14. Asking prices of newly listed homes hit a new all-time high of $350,972, up 10% from the same time a year ago. Pending home sales were up 21% year over year, the smallest increase since August. New listings of homes for sale were down 17% from a year earlier. Active listings (the number of homes listed for sale at any point during the period) fell 42% from 2020 to a new all-time low. This is the largest decrease on record in this data, which goes back through 2016. 57% of homes that went under contract had an accepted offer within the first two weeks on the market, well above the 46% rate during the same period a year ago. This is another new all-time high for this measure since at least 2012 (as far back as Redfin’s data for this measure goes). During the 7-day period ending March 14, 61% of homes sold in two weeks or less. 44% of homes that went under contract had an accepted offer within one week of hitting the market, up from 32% during the same period a year earlier. This is also an all-time high for this measure. During the 7-day period ending March 14, 48% sold in one week or less. The average sale-to-list price ratio, which measures how close homes are selling to their asking prices, increased to 100.0%—1.8 percentage points higher than a year earlier, an all-time high and the first time since this data series began in 2016 that the four-week average has exceeded 100% nationwide. For the 7-day period ending March 14, the seasonally adjusted Redfin Homebuyer Demand Index—a measure of requests for home tours and other services from Redfin agents—was up 85% from the same period a year ago, when the housing market was dramatically slowing down at the start of the pandemic. Mortgage purchase applications increased 2% week over week (seasonally adjusted) and were up 5% from a year earlier (unadjusted) during the week ending March 12. For the week ending March 18, 30-year mortgage rates increased to 3.09%, the highest level since June. “This time last year, the housing market was shutting down as many cities implemented strict shelter in place orders. A year later the pandemic is still with us, but the housing market is red-hot. It’s so hot some buyers are acting irrationally,” said Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather. “Some people are willing to do whatever it takes to win a bidding war to the point they may be overpaying. Still, I wouldn’t call this a housing bubble because the demand for homes is truly there and the buyers can afford these high prices. Bubbles burst; I don’t see that happening. The best hope buyers have is that home prices start to grow at a slower pace, but I don’t expect prices to fall.” In the coming weeks, as the nation’s housing market enters the period where comparisons to a year ago overlap with a steep decline in homebuying demand at the start of the pandemic, many housing demand measures will begin to show very large year-over-year increases. Redfin will provide context around those measures in its reporting as new data becomes available. To view the full report, including charts and methodology, please visit: https://www.redfin.com/news/housing-market-update-one-year-pandemic/

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Home values continued their march upward in February, matching record monthly growth from months prior, according to Zillow’s February Market Report. While home sales and appreciation soared over the course of the pandemic, rent growth slowed, seemingly a boost for rent affordability. However, it was often the more-expensive areas of metros that softened the most, providing little respite for renters in lower-priced areas. Rents have largely flatlined nationally during the pandemic and fallen significantly in several expensive markets, but the cuts did not reach all renters equally. While dropping rents could have provided relief to lower-income households who have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic, rent has remained stubbornly high in more-affordable areas, a new Zillow® analysis shows. “While the pandemic has cut into demand for rental housing, that has only translated into declining rents in expensive markets, and most acutely at the top-end of those markets,” said Zillow senior economist Jeff Tucker. “This past year saw widespread adoption of work-from-home policies, especially for higher-income renters who previously paid top dollar for proximity to their workplace. Demand for these rentals took a hit as many leapt into homeownership, while the flow of new renters entering these sub-markets dried up, at least temporarily.” In the New York metro area, for example, rents in wealthier neighborhoods are down 11.6% year over year, but they are up 1.8% in the least-expensive areas. In Atlanta, like many other more-affordable metros where rent has risen since last February, the increases have been biggest in the least-expensive ZIP codes, putting added financial pressures on vulnerable renters. Rents across the U.S. are showing real signs of recovery. Typical rents grew substantially on a monthly basis for the second month in a row, posting 0.4% gains after a 0.5% rise in January, lending credence to the idea that rents have bottomed out and are on an upward swing. Still, rents are up just 0.5% year over year, well behind the 3.7% annual pace they were growing in February 2020, illustrating the long road ahead to a full pre-pandemic recovery. Home values continue record-setting riseThe typical U.S. home value rose 1.1% in February to $272,446, maintaining the lightning-fast speed of month-over-month growth seen in both January and December. This is the fastest monthly appreciation in Zillow records reaching back to 1996, and still above the previous high of 1% set in the summer of 2005. Annual home value growth across the U.S. jumped from 9.1% in January to 9.9% in February, the highest yearly appreciation since April of 2006 and an increase of $24,473 for the typical U.S. home. For-sale housing inventory remains lower than a year earlier, as it did throughout 2020 largely due to a fast pace of sales. Inventory fell 8% from January and is down 30.3% year over year. “Home price appreciation kept up its breakneck pace in February, as a wave of early-bird shoppers competed furiously over a very limited inventory offering,” said Tucker. “Monthly price growth accelerated further in most large metros in February, suggesting that buyers still have a lot of gas in the tank to keep pushing prices higher.” Mortgage rates listed by third-party lenders on Zillow rose from a monthly low of 2.58% on February 10 to 2.98% as the month ended. While the streak of record-low rates may be over, rates remain very low by historical standards — mortgage rates ended February 2020 at 3.91%. Zillow’s real-time mortgage rates are based on thousands of custom mortgage quotes submitted daily to anonymous borrowers on the Zillow Group Mortgages site by third-party lenders and reflect recent changes in the market.

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Sunnyside Bancorp, Inc. (OTCBB: SNNY) announced that it had entered into an agreement with DLP Bancshares, an affiliate of DLP Real Estate Capital, a private financial services and real estate investment firm, pursuant to which DLP Bancshares would acquire Sunnyside Bancorp and its subsidiary, Sunnyside Federal Savings and Loan Association of Irvington (“Sunnyside Federal”). Under the terms of the agreement, shareholders of Sunnyside Bancorp will receive $15.55 in cash per share, subject to adjustment as provided in the merger agreement. This transaction is subject to regulatory approval and approval by Sunnyside Bancorp’s shareholders. Upon closing, Fred Reinhardt, a seasoned banking professional, will take the reins as President and CEO of Sunnyside Federal. Don Wenner, DLP Real Estate Capital Founder and CEO, commented, “Acquiring a bank is a natural segue to broadening and enhancing the offering of products and services to our current and future DLP family of investors, partners, and customers. Sunnyside’s focus on supporting the community with personal and business banking needs is a perfect fit with DLP’s mission to create prosperity. I could not be more excited about this opportunity.” “This transaction provides excellent value to our shareholders, while still allowing Sunnyside Federal to continue to deliver the same level of superior service to our customers. We are very enthusiastic about this partnership with DLP, which we believe will benefit our employees, customers and communities,” said Timothy D. Sullivan, President and CEO of Sunnyside Bancorp and Sunnyside Federal. Sunnyside Federal will continue to operate as a community bank serving the needs of its consumer and business customers and emphasizing personalized and efficient customer service. Sunnyside Federal also expects to offer commercial real estate financing to professional operators and warehouse loans to private lending originators on a national basis. Fred Reinhardt commented: “We intend to offer private banking services to high net-worth investors and small business owners around the country but with an emphasis in the North- and Southeast. The bank is uniquely positioned to leverage DLP’s real estate and investment expertise to provide a competitive and rewarding customer experience.” Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, a Stifel Company, acted as financial advisor to Sunnyside Bancorp, Inc. and rendered a fairness opinion to the Board of Directors of Sunnyside Bancorp, Inc. in conjunction with this transaction. The Kafafian Group advised DLP. Ballard Spahr LLP acted as legal advisor to DLP Bancshares and Luse Gorman, PC served as legal counsel to Sunnyside Bancorp and Sunnyside Federal. About DLP Real Estate Capital DLP Real Estate Capital, under the leadership of Founder and CEO Don Wenner, is a leader in the single and multi-family real estate sectors of brokerage, investment management, asset management, property management, construction, and private lending. DLP RE Capital leads and inspires the building of wealth and prosperity through the execution of innovative real estate solutions. The company generates consistent returns and results for its investors and partners and gives back through its Positive Returns Foundation. The family of companies includes DLP Capital Partners, DLP Lending, DLP Real Estate Management, DLP Realty, Alliance Servicing, and Alliance Property Transfer. DLP Real Estate Capital has over $1.25 billion in assets under management, over 700 loans in portfolio, and has closed over 16,000 real estate transactions totaling more than $4 billion. DLP has been ranked in the Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Companies in the U.S. for eight consecutive years; earned the #3 spot for Americas’ Fastest Growing Companies 2020 in the real estate and property category by Financial Times and has been named by The Wall Street Journal as one of the top 15 real estate firms in the U.S. for the fifth straight year, including the #1 team in PA and NJ for sales. About Sunnyside Bancorp, Inc. and Sunnyside Federal Savings and Loan Association Sunnyside Bancorp, Inc., headquartered in Irvington, New York, is the parent of Sunnyside Federal Savings and Loan Association, a federally-chartered stock savings and loan association founded in 1930. Sunnyside Federal offers a wide range of financial services through its office located in Irvington, New York. Sunnyside Bancorp, Inc.’s common stock trades on the Over-the-Counter Bulletin Board under the symbol “SNNY.”

by Paul Fiorilla
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Besides providing a short-term boost to the commercial real estate segments most affected by the pandemic, the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package signed into law by President Joe Biden promises to be a taste of the type of progressive policymaking Democrats will implement while they control Congress. The American Rescue Plan funds a wish list of programs sought by the industry, including nearly $40 billion of aid for rental housing, $25 billion to prop up the restaurant industry, and nearly $200 billion for state and local governments to assist small businesses, tourism and hospitality. That’s in addition to the elements of the bill – including stimulus payments to individuals and extended unemployment aid – that will help families pay rent and spend on consumer goods, providing an economic shot in the arm. The bill also signals a change in policy with Democrats in control over the legislative agenda for the first time in more than a decade. Although they have a razor-thin legislative majority, limited by the Senate filibuster and lockstep opposition of Republicans, Democrats have an ambitious agenda. Now that the relief package has been passed, Democrats are likely to move on to immigration, climate change, and infrastructure, where some bipartisan support may exist. Given the political reality as long as the Senate filibuster remains in effect and the scope of President Joe Biden’s agenda, big-ticket spending items such as infrastructure, aid for affordable housing and tax reform may have to wait until the fall. The stakes for the industry will become more complicated then. Handing out aid in COVID-19 relief is popular, but there is less agreement about the benefit to changing the tax code or implementing new environmental regulations. Commercial real estate industry has a wish list of legislative priorities that includes a mix of program funding and regulatory relief. As new outlays have been scarce in recent years, the industry’s success in Washington has mostly come via tax and regulatory issues. However, COVID-19 has transformed the policy dynamics. With the economy down more than 9 million jobs from its peak, and demand for relief for struggling families, concerns about the deficit have taken a back seat to getting the economy back on track and making whole businesses that have closed and workers who lost jobs through no fault of their own. Housing, Retail Among the Beneficiaries The American Rescue Plan has a mix of indirect and targeted measures that should prove beneficial to commercial real estate. Indirectly, provisions such as the $1,400 payments to individuals earning less than $75,000 and couples earning less than $150,000, $300 a week in extra unemployment assistance through September 6, and the enhanced child tax credit should “put money in consumers’ pockets and help pay rent,” said Justin Ailes, managing director of government relations for the CRE Finance Council. The bill also contains provisions that will have a more direct impact on commercial real estate. In particular, the bill funds a range of programs sought by the multifamily industry. Those include $21.6 billion in rental assistance payments to be disbursed through the Treasury Department’s Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP), $5 billion in housing vouchers that can be used for rental assistance, $5 billion for homelessness assistance, $750 million for rental assistance for tribal, native, and Hawaiian populations, $100 million for rural rental assistance. Other housing-related provisions include $4.5 billion for utility payment assistance and $120 million for counseling and fair housing. “Of the three (relief bills passed by Congress since the start of the pandemic), this is the most helpful to the industry,” said Mike Flood, a senior vice president of commercial/multifamily policy at the Mortgage Bankers Association. “We’re hopeful that, combined with the last bill, that will be enough to keep people in their houses and apartments and keep their refrigerators full until we get to the new normal.” All that funding comes on top of the $25 billion in rental aid passed in in December in the Consolidated Appropriations Act. While not covering every item on the multifamily industry’s wish list, industry advocates are “excited” at the amount of money targeting housing, said Cindy Chetti, senior vice president for government affairs at the National Multifamily Housing Council. “For the federal government to commit this kind of money to housing issues is unprecedented,” Chetti said. The federal aid should go a long way to making apartment owners whole. Tenants are behind on rent payments by as much as $70 billion, but they have largely been able to stay in place because of eviction moratoriums in various federal, state, and local jurisdictions. The rental assistance will enable property owners to collect unpaid rents and help pay mortgages and other bills. It remains to be seen how efficient the distribution of funds will be – the funds will be distributed to states and cities to be disbursed – but the infusion of cash will be a shot in the arm for the multifamily industry. Retail property owners will be helped by the $25 billion in grants targeted at restaurants that have been forced to close or scale back operations due to COVID-19. As of February, food service employment remained down by 2 million, or 16.3% less than it was at before the pandemic, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The aid will help restaurants to pay rent and retain workers. The allocation of $350 billion for state and local governments – whose workforces have shrunk by 1.4 million (7.0 percent) year-over-year through February, per the BLS – is another area that will help boost commercial real estate. In addition to helping governments to avoid more layoffs, the relief package earmarks $195 billion toward helping governments assist households and small businesses, improve water and broadband infrastructure, and help mitigate the impact of lost travel and hospitality spending. Big Policy Goals Ahead Beyond the immediate stimulus to the economy, the ARP signals that Democrats will “go big” on policy goals to the extent they can with a one-vote margin in the